Duke Grabowski Episode 1 Is Out Now

The first episode of Duke Grabowski, the crowd funded adventure game by Venture Moon (the new venture by a trio of developers that made Autumn Moon's adventures, including Bill Tiller himself), is finally here on Steam.

The game follows a brutish pirate named Duke, who longs to be a captain.  It's set in the same world that was introduced in Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island.

More Duke Grabowski Coming In Episodes

Duke Grabowski's Kickstarter updated with news that more Duke Grabowski is coming, as the game is now episodic and will now be published by Alliance Game Studios.

The game that backers will be getting will now be episode one out of five. Backers will get the game exactly as described in the Kickstarter, but the good news is that Duke's adventures will be larger than planned. The other good news is that the backing by a publisher means that the Duke Grabowski team can now work on the game full time. The first episode, the one that backers of the Kickstarter will be getting, is now planned to be finished in July.

Adventure Gamers Interview With Dave Grossman

Adventure Gamers has posted an informative interview with Dave Grossman about leaving Telltale, joining Reactive Studios as chief creative officer on their interactive audio dramas, working with Bill Tiller on Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler, and hints at future projects.

On the subject of the latter, he's going to be helping out with another game project that had a successful Kickstarter, but he can't talk about that yet.  Even though he's working from home now, 2015 certainly looks to be a busy year.

Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween again!  I actually got through my monster themed reviews this year, releasing at least one a day.  That got the my review backlog cut down considerably. Here's some Halloween tidbits for you:

The Wolf Among Us episodes 1-4 are now available on Android through the Google Play store. Episode 5 isn't available yet for any Android version (including Kindle), but will hopefully be out soon.

Dave Grossman, co-designer of three Monkey Island games, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Save the World, and the upcoming Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler (plus many more adventures), is also a master of pumpkins.  He has put pumpkins in amusing, macabre situations on his website almost every year since 1996.  After taking a break last year, he's back with a new creation this year, which you can see for yourself by heading over to the Pumpkin House of Horrors.

Duke Grabowski is Funded, Now Accepting Paypal

The Duke Grabowski kickstarter campaign is now fully funded and they also now accepting Paypal donations for the digital tiers (you'll find the Paypal links at the bottom of the main page). So, if you wait for that option before backing a crowdfunding campaign, and you want to play a campaign with an awesome art design by Bill Tiller and a game design by Dave Grossman, Bill Tiller, and Gene Mocsy, then you can now be a backer as well.

Oh, and my rendition of the pirate song is on its way. I'll try to get it done soonish. :)

Duke Is 90% Funded, Dave Grossman Joins Team

There is some good news at the Kickstarter for Duke Grabowski: Mighty Swashbuckler! Dave Grossman, the co-designer of the first two Monkey Island games (and Tales of Monkey Island), has joined the team as a co-designer. Another LucasArts alumni, and the current co-writer of Teen Wolf at MTV, Alyssa Clark, has also joined up to write dialog for the game. In addition, Larry Ahern, the co-designer of The Curse of Monkey Island, will be joining Dave Grossman in voicing versions of themselves in the game.

Duke is now 90% funded, and new slots have been added to the sold out upper tiers as incentive for those who want to pledge that high but missed the chance.  There's just over two days left in the campaign, so there's still time to make the goal.  Oh, and if the goal is met, I promised the readers of The International House of Mojo that I'd perform all four parts of The Curse of Monkey Island pirate song.  So, if you want to watch a grown woman try to mimic four men in a pirate shanty, there's always that for incentive. ;)

Kickstart Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler!

Bill Tiller, Jeremiah Grant, and Gene Moscy started a new company (Venture Moon Industries) and a new kickstarter to fund a pirate themed adventure game inspired by Monkey Island. It's called Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler, and will be set in the Azurbbean, the fictional version of the Caribbean from Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island. It's an homage and spoof of The Secret of Monkey Island but with a twist, the main character is a big, dim, angry man who turns out to be a man of honor. Bill Tiller is going to be the project lead and art director, Gene Mocsy is going to design, produce, and write for it, and Jeremiah Grant is going to be the programmer. They're looking for $40,000 which will fund the game, which will have about ten to twelve rooms and be a quarter of the size of A Vampyre Story. So, if this interests you, what are you waiting for? Pick a tier and back it now.